Walking the Distance
by LovettQuell
Summary: This is my telling of the seven years Haymitch and Effie spent working together as Mentor and Escort of District 12 before the 74th HG events and on. It's a mix of fluffy, angsty and comforting moments but most importantly, a journey of discovery of what lays in the heart of the other. And maybe, falling in love.


It was their first games together. She was glittery and vibrant from having landed one of the most coveted roles of the country: working in the Games. As an Escort, no less. Even if it was District 12, it was something to celebrate. He has already been with more than six escorts, all of them quitting the job because they simply couldn't stand him, or being escalated to something better after the trial period of three years all escorts were given. She introduced herself to him but all that registered in his brain was that she said she couldn't believe she would be working with a celebrity and in that moment, he wanted to smash her perfect teeth.

Their first tribute, the boy -he hadn't bothered to learn his name- died in the bloodbath. She sat there; shocked, absorbing the loss of a boy she had just been teaching yesterday how to use the silver cutlery of the penthouse. _Such a sweet kid, just a couple years younger than her._ Haymitch had detached away from the boy as soon as he met him. He was fearful and his eyes were far too innocent. He expected the worst and wanted to at least, see him as a fuzzy memory in his drunken nightmares.

The girl had a bit more of an edge, but she was too young. Merely 13 and there would definitely be hand-in-hand combat with opponents better trained, older, stronger. She had attitude, but would she even make it far? No sponsors were interested in District 12. A knife, a loaf of bread, even a blanket, would be able to separate that little girl from death.

He hears the Capitol girl crying that night. He doesn't give it much thought and a part of him thrills to see her hurt, to see her watching a little bit of what her people do to innocent kids. Then he feels disgusted with himself and drinks to sleep.

He wakes up the next morning to the sound of a person pacing in the lined floors of the penthouse. Can't that blasted woman take her heels off for a moment? He turns on the television because for what he knows, they are monitoring them and not watching the Games could be counted as rebellion. He sees her. The girl, he remembers her name is Sadhana, is still alive.

Some hours later and after endless frustration and prepping and speeches on manners, Effie Trinket has got both herself and Haymitch Abernathy, in time at the Gamemakers Headquarters and is planning to do one of the few selfless things she's ever done before in her twenty-two years of life. She sets the alarm of her phone to seven minutes, and walks to the small kitchen aisle to pour herself some coffee. When it rings, she makes a theatrical show of jumping up in surprise and leaving the coffee cup on the mahogany table in a rush and almost tripping in her shoes. She hopes she's convincing enough and is not overdoing it. She picks the phone up and pretends to answer it cheerfully, dialoguing with the supposed sponsor in the other side of the line and talking about the strengths of little Sadhana, currently perched up in a tree, trying not to be found. She nods one final time and hangs up the phone with a satisfied smile. She hopes to draw other people in the table with her talking that focused on all that Sadhana had to give. And she gets two real sponsors that provide her with bread, delicious bread from a fine Capitol bakery, and even a warm jacket for the kid who lost the one they give to all the Tributes at the Cornucopia in an effort to protect herself. No weapons, but beggars can't be choosers, right? She goes to sleep with the knowledge that she kept the girl alive for a day more and feels she deserves a new manicure and pedicure for being such a responsible and considerate Escort.

Sadhana lives the third day. Haymitch is relieved, but holds no hope. He is annoyed by the bright smile and starstruck eyes of the Capitol girl, whom he now calls mockingly Princess.

He hates that she's probably already imagining herself escorting a young Victor home. He hates her. Even if she's done nothing wrong yet. Even if she's the only Escort he's seen doing the job right in what most of those Capitolian power-driven people see as a passing District with nothing to offer them and who also talked with the Tributes and tried to teach them things. He was close enough to see that the sponsor call was nothing more but the alarm that woke her up every morning. A move so silly, that could have cost her everything but she had been well-intentioned and if he had to admit it, it was bold and a little cunning for Capitolian standards.

On the night of the fourth day, Sadhana was hurt by a scrawny boy from District Nine. She managed to run and find cover but his knife reached her leg and she couldn't stop the bleeding. Haymitch had sighed at the sight and even offered some of his precious liquor to his Escort companion. She was so distressed and pale that Haymitch whispered her to smile a little and be her annoying self. He wouldn't tell her about his suspicions that the penthouse was soundproofed. She was probably one of those airheads that thought the Capitol could do no wrong.

On day five, Effie decides that desperate times call for desperate measures. She knows that what she's about do is absolutely illegal but she really tries hard to make her voice sound different. She is going to sponsor Sadhana and buy her the medicine she needs. She doesn't even know why she's doing this. She's never cared much for the Games in their essence; she watched for the Interviews, for the fashion and for the feeling of hope and victory she would get at the end of them. In an odd way, she felt proud of the Victors since she was in her early teenage years. Some of them became her guilty obsessions and she wouldn't admit to anyone that she could see the dignity and the appeal of people from the lower districts. The fight and the survival and what constituted the Hunger of the Hunger Games never really struck a nerve before. But maybe, sending the coffin of the boy who died on the first day home, and knowing that Sadhana was a spunky girl with a life ahead made them people. And people mattered to Effie. She tried to talk slowly and softly, she knew that it was the way that disguised her accent better. She knew because her grandmother had spoken like that too. She was from before; from the place called United States of America. All she remembered from her Nana were senile recounts of freedom and the repeated words New Jersey, but mostly, she remembered her soft, slow voice. She picked up the phone and tried to channel her late relative, convinced no one would find out.

-Well, hello. I'd like to -

-Princess?

Her blood froze in her veins.

-W-what? Haymitch?

-What the hell are you doing?

-I was... you see, the truth is I was going to buy

-Shut up, right now- he hissed in the other side of the line - You are going to laugh and say something along the line of buy a new dress or shoes or whatever.

-Why would I? - she asked, annoyed and confused.

-Don't question me on this, Princess. You are lucky that now Sponsors calls are directed straight to the Mentors and we have a private viewing area... You know, Top 10.

-B-but...- the silence was challenging on the phone. She closed her eyes and laughed merrily. - I don't know about you, dear, but I don't take well to be interrupted. I was telling you that the truth is I'll buy all that Tribute-inspired clothing line. I hear it's a must for the upcoming parties...

She kept rambling and in that moment, she understood a little bit of Haymitch's fear and hate for the Capitol, not being that stupid to not figure out that the room, -_holy Panem, the entire penthouse!_- must be connected to the Games Headquarters. That feeling of being robbed of her privacy, of watching her back was something new and she didn't like it one bit. When Haymitch told her it was okay to hang up, she had to occupy her mind with a magazine and bite her knuckles to not give away her frustration.

Sadhana died in the night of the fifth day, from dehydration and loss of blood from her poorly bandaged wound. Effie stared at the screen and couldn't seem to move away her eyes from the spot where the small body was shown. When her body began to shake, Haymitch dimmed the lights out and turned the television to full volume. That action made Effie snap out from her trance and glare at him.

-Just in case, Princess- he says with a low growl.

-I can't believe she's gone- she mutters, her fingers prickling the edge of her skirt.

-You tried to help her. Why?

-I don't know! - she said, truly confused at her insanity of hours earlier and the fact that Haymitch was mentioning it now - It's my job. Sort of. Why didn't you?

He flinched and she looked guiltily at the floor for her outburst. She told herself to remember her manners in her head.

-So you care?

-Why are you surprised? It's only human.

-I didn't know young, Capitol airheads could be human.

-Did you just call me an airhead?- she says, comically widening her eyes in anger - Let me inform you I was one of the top students of my class! I have good grades and I have connections! I am not an airhead, Mr. Haymitch.

No, Haymitch thought; not really. He had found out some things about his new escort in these few days and he didn't know if he should be happy or angry or why should they even matter to him.

Effie Trinket was a person. She was smart for being Capitol born and raised and she had a heart. At least she had one now. She had put herself on the line to sponsor a girl -something he still thought incredibly stupid but very kind- that for many escorts before her would be nothing more than a nameless girl with a dirty face from the Seam of District 12. She was devoted to her job not in the way that screamed "I'm here for the money", it was more of an "I'm here because I want to be useful and validated." She was passionate and she could argue and not once, had he heard her speak about vain and superficial matters, even if she was invested in all the newest trends of fashion and was a social butterfly by all means. She knew that he didn't care, and that proved she wasn't absolutely absorbed in herself.

-Just kidding, Effie.

She smiled a pleased smile at him finally calling her by her name.

And that's how he got Effie drunk on the couch of the penthouse with just a few glasses of whiskey and found out that the girl was a total lightweight. When she had started to weep in his chest, tugging at his shirt strongly and mumbling Sadhana's name, he laid on her back and told her to sleep it off. Instead, she kissed him with her wig tilted off a side. She tasted like whiskey and something sweet he couldn't quite place. However nice it felt, he broke the kiss and pushed her away, telling her they didn't need this between them. They were nothing else but people forced to work together and her wide blue eyes, so innocent and lively seemed broken at his words, and he tried to drown the tiny spark of guilt he felt.

After she fell asleep, he made himself stay awake and be gone as soon as dawn broke in, as he didn't want to see her in broad daylight and see her sober, blushing and blabbering; seeing more things that would make her completely a person, like for example, the strands of hair that had fallen off from the wig from the position she was sleeping on the couch. He couldn't tell the color of her hair as it was all dark, not that he wanted to know.

He would be seeing her again next year, as she had a good start, placing a Tribute of her low district in the top 10 and she was charming, and chatty, and young. No reason whatsoever to dismiss her. He won't admit to anyone that he's already wondering the next time he'll see her as he walks to the Capitol's train station at the break of dawn.


End file.
